More and more Pakistanis, in search of a better future, continue to leave their homeland. DESIGN: JAMAL KHURSHID
With fear-mongers and terrorists on the loose, more and more Pakistanis consider heading out for safety, better education and promise of a better life. While the first to take these long-haul flights are usually the youth, Pakistan’s turbulent social climate is forcing people of all ages to consider leaving the comfort zone of their country.
According to the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis 5,873,539 Pakistanis have emigrated from 1981 to 2012, out of which a staggering 41,498 professional and technical workers left in 2012 alone. The reasons may be varied, but Pakistan will lose out on human resource if the brain drain trend continues.
Earn abroad, remit back home
A growing number of elderly parents continue living in Pakistan while their children have fled the country in search of greener pastures. The same is true for wives and children who wait to see the head of the family’s face once a year at best. Meanwhile, the money keeps trickling in via online money transfers.
The trend becomes more evident as the amount of remittances overseas Pakistanis send to their families residing in Pakistan keeps growing each year.
Expatriate and overseas Pakistanis sent home a record $13.920 billion in the previous fiscal year (July 2012-June 2013), according to data released by the State Bank of Pakistan. The figures show a growth of 5.56% or $733.64 million compared with $13.187 billion a year earlier.
The top six destinations are Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA, UK, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (including Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman) and EU countries, with Saudi Arabia topping the list because of the $4.105 billion Pakistanis sent back home from there between July 2012-June 2013.
Driven away by conflict
The exodus of youth from troubled areas has accelerated. The more conflict in an area, the higher is the number of those fleeing it. Going abroad is obviously their first choice rather than relocating to a safer part of Pakistan.
Young people of Lyari are increasingly leaving their nest to study abroad. “Previously they would go to Arab countries to get jobs, but now the motivation is mostly education,” says Sohail Rahi, the general secretary at the ARM Child & Youth Welfare, the organisation that successfully launched the Lyari Youth Café in Karachi. His younger brother left for his Masters degree in London.
Education and jobs may be the end in sight, but the main reason for the trend is unrest and conflict. The ex town nazim of Lyari, Mehmood Hashim says, “Despite the development in Lyari during the PPP reign, people are leaving because of bhatta (extortion), threats and kidnappings.” According to him, parents are willing to go to any lengths to secure their children from harm. “Almost 60 to 70 per cent of the Lyari population has fled,” he estimates.
Driven away by discrimination
Forced to flee for obvious reasons, the Hazara youth are pining to get away. “Either legally or illegally, they just want to leave the country,” says Huma Foladi, a human rights activist from the Hazara community and the executive director at Rights Research & Development Foundation (RRDF). “The youth of our community stopped going to schools and colleges because they see no future here.” Parents have resorted to selling their homes, applying for loans or selling jewellery to sponsor trips, with Australia being the most popular destination.
“The government of Australia is very facilitating,” says Shazia Khan, a social support officer at Global Fund, explaining why Australia is the choice of Hazaras. According to Shazia, previously young men from the community aged 18-30 would make the trip and later sponsor their families once well-settled, but now everyone wants to leave. Shazia claims that the risky boat trip to Australia “might guarantee only five per cent safety,” but even that is preferred over the threats the community faces.
Till 2012 at least 950 Hazara asylum seekers had lost their lives while going to Australia. In addition, more than 300 have lost their lives while going to Europe via turkey border during the last one decade, according to the Human Rights Commission for Social Justice & Peace.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 2nd, 2013.
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The tragedy with Pakistan is that her economists are grossly incompetent.They simply do not know how to make the priority list for the economy to grow in a way that suits development which in turn will check the mass exodus of population.As a first step all they have to do is to ensure continuous and uninterrupted power supply to all sectors of economy.Next they should reduce the consumer prices of gas,fuel and power,drastically and immediately.People have all the potential to take care of the rest and they will cause to generate much more revenue by massively indulging in production process
Can't blame someone who want's to find a job. Can't blame someone for being reluctant to invest in a country which hid OBL for a decade and is still punishing those who helped find him rather than those who helped hide him. Don't see this pattern of exporting talent changing anytime in the near future.